[Irish]

About five years ago Mike and I had some major repairs and maintanence to do to our lily pond. So the easiest idea was to dig a small temporary pond to hold our goldfish and plants while we did the work. Note the word 'temporary', it was only meant to be around for a couple of months at the most.

That pond was a quickie job of digging the hole, piling the dug dirt along the sides to make a raised edge. Then we lined it with newspaper and used plain old black hardware store plastic as the liner.

So, as things go in the Irish household, the repairs got done but the small pond did not get torn down ... we could do that come the following spring. Early March the next year while surveying the yard for the coming warm weather I discovered that the small pond was full of egg masses, both string type and ball type. Now what was I suppost to do??? I ask you! If I tore down the little pond I was about to murder two quazillion innocent eggs. About 20 days later those eggs turned into poles, the string masses were toadpoles and the ball masses were tadpoles. We have been blessed with eggs every year since and diligently care for them just as we do our goldfish.

While feeding this morning I had my first site of this years "hatchlings". He was sitting on one of the water iris leaves and still has a bit of a tail to him. He's about 1/4" long and has about one thousand brothers and sisters that will soon join him. In about five days all my babies will have hopped the nest and my small pond will be empty until next spring ... am I having 'empty nest syndrome" this morning

Susan

PS. Those borwn stick things beside him are 1" long pine needles! And the reason the water is so murky green is because tadpoles do not like moving water. So there is no filtration for that pond until everyone has hatched. In about two weeks I'll throw in a barley straw ball and the pond will crystalize in a few days.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Susan, looks like you could work the first photo into an excellent relief carving.

As a carver of birds and a retired park ranger, I maintain an interest in all things natural. The amphibian world is in trouble on a global scale and no one is sure exactly why. It is good to see someone appreciating these critters and helping them out. Bats have been making a comeback because of increased interest. Maybe frogs............

[squbrigg]

Tadpoles, frogs and green water......brings back memories of younger years. Hunting for tadpoles was a pleasant way of spending time down our way as kids, bringing them home in a glass bottle to show our mom's our prized results. I'm sure she was thrilled!!! Probably better than the snakes we brought home!

That first photo would make a delightful carving Paul, perhaps Susan had that in mind?

Thank you for sharing those Susan, good luck with the rest of the brood!

Bob

[Irish]

Hey Paul, As a retired Park Ranger you might appreciate that we are part of Maryland's Wildacres Program and have been since it's conception. We own 3 1/2 acres ... 1 1/2 in new oak forest, about 40 years old; 1/2 acres in Mom's flower gardens; and 1 acres in wild meadow.

The meadow changes from year to year so that we can cut down the new tree growth. We rotate sections so that three sections are wild and one section is the mowed section for that year. But the meadow is always is in contact with our fence line ... full of briars, wild roses, honeysuckle, and smaller trees like sacaffras, wild cherry, and dogwood. We have been here for thirty years now and so far our lives have been graced with opossums, raccoons, foxes, lots of different snakes, rabbits and a huge assortment of birds. Our neighbors (please excuse the derrogatory term of "City Folk") call it our weed patch ... we call it our Haven!

Only twice over the years have we had problems because we decided to devote part ofthe land to nature. We have a family of 'possums that just insist that the cat food on the front porch is better then hunting for themselves. So in a month or so we will start seeing the babies on the front porch in the wee hours of the night. 'Possums eat a LOT of cat food so our pet food allowance goes sky high this time of year.

The other problem is new to this year. The land across from us is being developed for housing so the local deer are disturbed. We have a doe and her fawn that are coming into the yard late at night. That's OK with us except ... they are eating MY lily buds and MY hostas! Not wanting to injure them we have resorted to an organic "deer repelent" of garlic and hot pepper sauce. It's working for the deers but now my garden smells like an Italian dinner ... Oh the trails and tribulations of land ownership.

Bob! My brother brought home a water snapping turtle one year as his "pet in the jar". Now it had a shell about 10" long but that was OK until it escaped one night. Did you know there really are things that live under your bed that bite! After that Mom put a limit of the size of the creatures we could bring home ... anything bigger then 2" had to be left in the wild.

Susan

[Paul_Guraedy]

Susan, you are right. I do appreciate the fact that you are using your land to assist wildlife. Even though the acreage is relatively small, we need the small areas to maintain "green corridors" for migrating birds and one of the major causes of reduction in quail (and small mammal) numbers is the change from "grown over" fence rows to the clean fences of today. The most productive area for wildlife is the "edge" areas (about 20-30' into a field and 20-30' into woods). I was fortunate in that my wife inherited 650 acres here in the Ozarks. About half of it is in fields (leased for cattle grazing) and half in woods. But, most of the fields are small meadows that have wandering borders (nothing square) providing a lot of edge community. I lease the hunting rights (deer, turkey, and squirrel), which provides funds for me to manage the area for maximum wildlife production (deer, turkey, bear, squirrel, quail, bobcat, racoon, even have the occasional elk). No hunting around our home where I provide food for deer, turkey, and assorted birds (currently going though 1/2 gallon of food a day for my hummingbirds and 50 pounds of bird seed every couple of weeks for the others.

I have given up on gardening (coons and deer) but am trying to keep them out of my small orchard. The best method seems to be a rotation of organic repellent, hanging Irish Spring soap in the trees, hair from a local beauty shop, and netting. A gardener near one of the parks where I was stationed had an electric fence he used quite effectively. Deer normally learn to jump these obstructions, so he put peanut butter on foil and hung it on the electric fence. One lick and the deer stayed away. Now, if I can just figure out how to keep the bear away from my honey bees.

This morning I was bush hogging one of the fields and noticed that an apple tree (planted circa 1920 by wife's grandfather) had split and half was already drying out. Thought about the discussion on applewood here on the forum and think I will try and salvage some of this tree for carving. I have already started carving some small decoys in other trees from the ranch to show the variety of the wood.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Paul...put some ammonia in a baloon and coat the outside with bacon grease.....guaranteed! Bear will get a whiff of the ammonia and will not come back.

[Carvity_Carve]

Thanks for sharing the pictures! Makes me miss the annual frog catching us kiddies used to do before our “creek� of a ditch was filled in. I haven't seen those brown frogs in sooooo long. Just the little tree frogs now.

Ah, guess our mom got lucky. WE always kept all the wet or slithery things OUTside! Mammals, of course, were rare, cute, and fuzzy, so they deserved better acommandations inside, and she didn't mind. Chased a chipmunk all over the house once! Of course, after that experience I learned to be extra careful around the recaptured chippie, which is why I let it loose in my room later. Tsk, bet it was glad when it was finally released.

Sabrina

[Paul_Guraedy]

Hi Ho, I will try the ammonia idea and hope it works. The bees have enough problems with mites; but, at least they don't destroy the hive. This idea is interesting. My last assignment was at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alaska. We found that bears (grizz at least) seemed attracted to jet fuel and loved to puncture the balloon type storage units we used. The bacon grease may just attract them to it before they tear into the hive.

thanks

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

A bear was tearing up my neighbors chicken house in colorado, so he did this...the bear left and didn't come back...he then proceeded to tear up my little building I put the garbage cans in! So I tried the balloon and bacon grease bit...the turkey wouldn't touch it! ha ha...whoever said "dumb animals" was a few bricks short a full load! But if that doesn't work, I have a spray concoction that sounds revolting, but really isn't that bad and will work for about 3 months if it doesn't rain...let me know by email if you need it........Dave

[Irish]

650 Acres! Bears in the bee hives and in the chicken house! Elk and Bobcats in the backyard! Chipmunks in your bedroom and tadpoling in the creek!

Boy, do I feel "One Uped" ... and I was so delighted with 1 1/2 acres and tiny little tadpoles. (Deep, heavy sigh!)

Susan